Changes to Alberta Privacy Legislation Receive Royal Assent
On October 27, 2009 Bill 54, involving proposed amendments to the Personal Information Protection Act ("PIPA"), passed first reading in the Alberta Legislature. While generally seen as a fine-tuning of PIPA, the highlights of the Bill include:
- requiring that organizations notify the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner where a privacy breach has occurred that could result in harm to an individual (it will be an offence for organizations to fail to notify the Commissioner's office in such circumstances);
- requiring that individuals be notified when an organization will be transferring personal information to a service provider outside of Canada (for example, where utilizing a an international call centre for post-purchase services, outsourcing processing of credit card transactions, etc.);
- enabling employers to retain certain personal information concerning former employees without consent, as necessary to manage the post-employment relationship; and
- allow local governments and professional regulatory organizations to pass by-laws and legislative instruments that allow for collection, use or disclosure of personal information without consent. Professional regulatory organizations may also pass legislative instruments appointing mediators or arbitrators, where personal information collected or created within such arbitration or mediation may be shielded from an access request
In view of these developments, organizations that collect personal information should continue to monitor the status of Bill 54 with a view to updating to their privacy-related practices and policies should the Bill come into force.
UPDATE
On November 26, 2009 Bill 54 received Royal Assent. The Bill will come into force once proclaimed by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta.
